What is the Benacquisto Scholarship and how does it work at UCF?

A Florida state-funded merit scholarship for high school graduates recognized as National Merit Scholars. At participating Florida public universities including UCF, the Benacquisto effectively covers the cost of attendance for four years for qualifying recipients.

UCF· Renewal Rules

Keeping UCF’s Merit Aid for Four Years

What the financial-aid office actually requires after freshman year: minimum GPA, credit-hour pace, and the cliffs that quietly downgrade families mid-degree.

Verified May 20268 days ago· CC-1

At a glance

Renewable tiers: 2 of 2
One-time tiers: 0
Tiers with published renewal terms: 2
Renewal risk profile: low

Renewal risk profile

UCF's published renewal rules cluster around a 3.0 floor with no major-GPA gating, which is survivable for the typical freshman with steady study habits. The risk is non-renewal due to enrollment status (dropping below full-time), not GPA.

Pegasus Scholarships: See notes
Benacquisto Scholarship: See notes

Renewal terms by tier

Pegasus Scholarships
Amount varies; not publicly published on the UCF scholarship landing page
To keep it: Renewal terms not publicly disclosed on the landing page; verify in the individual scholarship offer letter.
Source: https://www.ucf.edu/financial-aid/types/scholarships/
Benacquisto Scholarship
Cost of attendance for four years
To keep it: Renewable for four years (state-funded program).
Source: https://www.ucf.edu/financial-aid/types/scholarships/

How families lose this aid

Florida National Merit Scholars not applying to a Florida public for the Benacquisto.
The Benacquisto Scholarship is a state-funded program available only at participating Florida public universities including UCF. National Merit Scholars from Florida who attend out-of-state schools forfeit a four-year cost-of-attendance award.
Reporting outside scholarships to UCF only after the package is set.
UCF requires students to use the Self-Report Tool to disclose outside awards. Late disclosure can cause mid-year package revisions, with grants, work-study, or loans reduced without a guaranteed loan-first order.
Modeling UCF as a generous-merit out-of-state option.
Out-of-state tuition and fees alone are $22,482, pushing UCF's non-resident on-campus total to $42,800. The Pegasus awards are not deep enough to close that gap for most out-of-state students without independent need-based aid.

Renewal questions families ask

What is the Benacquisto Scholarship and how does it work at UCF?: A Florida state-funded merit scholarship for high school graduates recognized as National Merit Scholars. At participating Florida public universities including UCF, the Benacquisto effectively covers the cost of attendance for four years for qualifying recipients.

Rules that bite at UCF

The renewal trip wires we'd flag in a custom playbook, derived from UCF's own tier rules and not generic advice.

renewalPegasus Scholarships: renewal floor that quietly knocks awards out
Renewal terms not publicly disclosed on the landing page; verify in the individual scholarship offer letter. A single rough term can end a four-year award here without warning if the GPA floor isn't met cumulatively.

How UCF compares across our verified dataset

133 of 150 verified schools publish at least one four-year renewable merit award.
UCF is one of them. The cohort minority (17 schools) only awards one-year scholarships, which means the four-year value families assume on a brochure quote isn't guaranteed at every school.
50 of 150 verified schools publish a dedicated National Merit Finalist package.
UCF is one of them. NMF packages typically carry their own stacking and renewal carve-outs separate from the standard automatic merit ladder; confirm those before assuming the headline NMF value is final.

Sources used on this page

Every renewal claim is checked against UCF’s own published materials.